Recipe for a six room poem… February 14, 2008

As a writer I am always looking for words and images that will help me see the world a little more clearly – to really be able to describe the exact shade of purple I saw in the fading of the sunset, or how the yellow bowl filled with green apples looked set in the middle of the dining room table.

I find reading anything by Georgia Heard helps me to do this (Awakening the Heart; Creatures of Earth, Sea, & Sky; For the Good of the Earth & the Sun; Writing Towards Home).  Simplistic and stripped down, her writing simply illuminates the obvious, the stuff that was sitting right in front of your nose.  Yet it also provides enough detail that things can lodge themselves in my mind – helps me to see the small things that I might otherwise have overlooked.

One of the most useful of Georgia’s exercises is the writing of the “Six Room Poem”.  I don’t use it just to write poetry, but find it particularly helpful when I am trying to create/recreate an image, set the scene, or simply trying to breathe a little more life and a little more poetry into my everyday writing.  I have also used this exercise in a classroom setting with children to help them create poems.

This is how you do it: 

• Divide a piece of paper into six squares.
• In the 1st “room” think of something that you have seen that is amazing, beautiful, interesting, or that has just stayed in your mind.  Simply describe and write down what comes to your mind.
• In the 2nd room look at the same image in the first room – but just focus on the quality of light that surrounds the image (soft/harsh/daylight/moonlight), and what colors do you associate with the image.
• 3rd room – picture the same image but this time focus on only the sounds.  Are there any voices?  What is in the background?  What kind of silence do you hear?  Lonely?  Peaceful?
• 4th room – write down any questions you have about the image.  Anything you want to know more about?
• 5th room – write down any feelings you have about this same image.  Rage? Frustration? Peace?
• 6th room – look over the five rooms and select one word, or a few words/phrase/or sentence that feels important and repeat it three times.

Finished!  Now all you need to do is spend some time looking over what you wrote.  Other ideas/feelings might arise about the image as you spend some time reflecting on the image.  Now you are ready to create your poem/paragraph/whatever you want to accomplish with the image – by rearranging and eliminating the words or sentences you have created.

 Have fun!  I will try to post one of my “images” in the next few days.